August 14, 2006

Still not convinced

Indeed, I'm less convinced before that our current administration isn't just giving us a snow job over this whole airline security kerfuffle. I was just watching CNN in the hostel's* dining room, and this is as close to a direct quote as I can do from memory:

VOICEOVER: American travellers adapted quickly to the new set of luggage regulations. But what if the terrorists think the same way? Security experts are now worried that terrorists can use the new regulations to attack planes from the cargo hold.

"EXPERT": Here at LAX, we simply don't have the ability to scan large pieces of cargo for explosives. We are working with companies to develop this technology even now.

But here's the thing: although travellers are checking more luggage---an obvious consequence of restricting what they can put in their carryons---and therefore the system is at higher flow, the regulations on checked luggage haven't changed at all. So all of this "new danger", "we were caught unawares", etc, it's all a great big lie: they have said that they don't have any specific knowledge of plans to stick bombs in checked luggage, and the generic danger is absolutely no worse than it was a week ago. The entire purpose of this media campaign of Michael Chertoff and the other members of the administration is to create fear and terror in the population, presumably in an attempt to get permission (or forgiveness, or complacency) for more rounds of their treasonous, failed policies.

*Ooh, forgot to mention: I'm in San Francisco right now, in a downtown hostel at the end of a dead-end alley. I'm off shortly to explore a bit. I'm really in a much better mood than the rest of this post would seem to indicate. :)

"And I wonder if that includes Jesus of Nazareth, who, as Gibson may
have discovered during his extensive research for his movie, was Jewish.
Maybe the fact that Jesus' mother had a nice Catholic name was
confusing." --Fr Jim Martin, SJ